The road to hell is paved with pRAgMaTic point solutions

Any theory of management sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from a cult.

The absolute pinnacle of digital technology was that 20Q game…

“Is it larger than a microwave oven? No? You’re thinking of a degu.”

Incredible! We should have stopped there.

London pub thief sold £2.2m Fabergé egg and watch set to buy drugs Enzo Conticello jailed for 27 months for ‘opportunistic’ theft of Givenchy handbag containing precious jewels

The only question on my mind this evening is WHO, in the name of all the angels and saints, takes £2M worth of *somebody else’s* Faberge egg to the pub???
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

OpenAI shelves landmark £31bn UK investment package Artificial intelligence company cites high energy costs and regulation as reasons for putting Stargate project on hold

Gosh… so tech industry ‘commitments’ aren’t what you might think of as commitments? Who knew…
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Fresco uncovered at Pompeii shows Cassandra being importuned in the temple by a naked Apollo, head in hands, clearly 100% DONE with his bullshit

Reminds me of the fresco of Cassandra recently discovered at Pompeii

16 seconds of Portstewart seas… watch for the blowhole on the harbour wall 🐳

26.60 WR4 Megaminx average (NR) YouTube video by Aidan Grainger

Video of my son's Megaminx Average National Record - 4th fastest in the world of all time

He's previously held the World Record for Megaminx Single but the Average is the record you want. 5 solves, take off the fastest and slowest times and average the remaining 3 #SpeedCubing

youtu.be/u9RCPWHceIk

OMFG. 🫶

You absolutely KNOW there’s a skeleton bricked up in there! 👀

My first house had the chimney breast removed at the back, and properly strutted in the roof space, BUT that was a weeny 2-up-2-down terrace, which needed every square inch you could squeeze out of it… imagine having a kitchen that’d fit a pool table and still doing a dodgy cut-n-shut on it! 🥴

Came here to say the same. Some monstrous vandal took out the chimney breast that was supporting the entire stack above it.

There’s hope for us all yet!

This is very cool! I actually have a dodecahedron Rubik’s ‘cube’ that I’m too afraid to mess up because I’m sure it would take me the rest of my life to right it.

A man, a woman, boy, and smaller girl all wearing the same jacket, shorts and shirt combo, made up in different colours. You can tell which ones are female because PINK.

A man and a woman wearing over-the-top colour-blocked jackets. His is off-white and blue, hers is fuchsia and orange, but they are so obviously TWINNIES

Back view of a man and woman wearing tracksuits made up in quite extraordinary teddy-bear fleece, with big cargo pockets in the pants. His is burnt orange; hers is a kind of pale blush. They look like proper twats and you can tell they both know it.

Every now and then, when I’m browsing sewing patterns, I’ll filter for unisex ones for the sheer creepiness of the pattern photographs…

Lee Anderson filmed paid-for Cameo videos at parliament in possible rules breach Reform MP made Valentine’s Day clips for platform despite previous warning about commercial filming

Lee Anderson selling… err… valentine’s messages for £50 a go must surely count as the low-water mark of both politics and romance?
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-i...

Funny the things that stick with you for life, but we have never, ever walked our dogs loose anywhere near livestock… or rabbits… some of them nowhere near seagulls or cats… current horror is on lead and muzzled every walk, because he hates most other dogs… gotta love a terrier!

Maybe 40 years ago, we had a dog that wriggled out the quarter-open back window of the car, while we were packing up after a picnic, to chase the cows. An onlooker said “if the farmer sees that he’ll shoot her” to which my mum replied “get me the farmer with his gun and I’ll fucking shoot her!”

Democracy in a nutshell

The road to hell is paved with ‘pragmatic’ point solutions

Fuck a duck. Like… we all know things are bad, but this is BAD.

Screenshot of Bloomberg UK headline: stargate’s first data centre site is size of central part, with at least 57 jobs

Guardian is reporting on ‘phantom investments’ in tech infrastructure - where are the jobs? What will the UK own? What’s in it for the average citizen? - so once again I’m sharing this Bloomberg gem…

$100B data centre, the size of Central Park… and 57 jobs.

FIFTY SEVEN.

My dog does not Dick Van Dyke, but he does a great, theatrical pounce on command.

‘promoting a £160 lunch to awaken attenders’ “inner goddess”’

Careful what you wish for, profiteers: my inner goddess is Skaði - embodiment of righteous vengeance 💁‍♀️

I could carry on with this for days, but mostly I would be filling in more detail on two of the root cause problems with economic statistics:
- capitalism
- and patriarchy

Problems not only because they’re morally bankrupt, but because they’re incomplete, arrogant and essentially stupid worldviews.

3. Everyone else? Students, retirees and ‘discouraged workers’? Yeah, well that takes material incentive, but the economic blind spot about ‘domestic’ and caring work - a system that imagines it happens for free - depresses pay/conditions until care jobs take more out of you than they can compensate

1. Looking after family/home? They’ve already GOT full time jobs in social care - they’re just doing it unseen, unpaid and DESPICABLY undervalued.

2. Long-term sick/disabled? Cool, cool, cool - pressure them into paid work, and you’re going to drive up care needs for themselves and their households

How the dysfunction is playing out right now:

- the UK government is decimating the social care workforce by cutting off the supply of international workers

- they *think* it will draw folk out of ‘economic inactivity’ to grow the domestic social care workforce, which isn’t happening because…

Galloping (simplified) overview:

There was a time when one salary was expected to sustain a heteronormative household.

Capitalism went rogue, wages eroded, and two-adults-in-employment became the new ‘ideal’.

Previously-disregarded ‘women’s work’ becomes a fracture point in the system.

I’m not going to bore through every one of these, but to classify ‘looking after family/home’ as ‘economically inactive’ is economically illiterate.

a) That is work.
b) It has to be done.
c) *Some* fucker has to do it.

Its invisibilisation/devaluation is the root of a serious economic malaise.